This invention relates to provision of broadband services within premises supplied with cable service such as a small office or a residence. It is specifically concerned with wireless distribution of these broadband services within the premises. A particular variant of this distribution system concerns the use of existing coaxial cable within the premises for distribution of these services by wireless radiation and the modes of distributing this radiation within the premises.
Broadband communication systems (i.e. cable systems) provide the capability of delivering various bundles of voice, video, and data services to premises. Once delivered to a premises it must be distributed to various applications within the premises. This often requires added wiring to be routed within the premises at an added expense that may result in some potential customers not accepting such service when offered or in a large expense to the service provider. To provide this added wiring is an expensive and extensive undertaking since the added wiring must traverse the various interior regions of the house is order to connect to the varied devices capable of broadband services.
One method of achieving delivery of broadband services without the undesirable rewiring of the premises may be able to be accomplished by a means of a wireless transmitter. When the transceiver is located inside the structure, no additional wiring is needed, but wireless radiation to various sections of the premises is often impeded by internal structural elements of the premises.
When the wireless transceiver is affixed to an outside wall of the premises, lifeline power can be supplied to the wireless device from the service provider""s plant. But by locating the device on the outside of the premises, the outer wall structure becomes an added barrier to adequate radiation to many locations within the premises.
Hence, receiving a signal from a single fixed wireless transmitter, through structure within or without the premises, results in an attenuated signal with inferior signal quality at many internal locations. To overcome the additional attenuation, due to structural impedance, may require the use of an undesirably high transmission level.
Typically, premises receiving broadband cable services are or need to be internally wired to provide standard broadcast and broadband services to a plurality of devices throughout the premises. By using the existing coaxial cable to distribute services, by localized wireless transmission throughout the premises, a single wireless access node may be used to transport the broadband services via the existing coax cabling. This provides a method for distribution of the broadband services without adding any new dedicated wiring in the premises.
In one exemplary embodiment a broadband signal access point (which may be located internally or external to the premises) in combination with the existing cabling is used with some added radiation devices to provide cost effective distribution of broadband services within the premises.
A premises, which is configured to receive broadband services through an existing standard broadcast cable system, is provided with a broadband interface unit (i.e. Set-top box, Broadband Termination Interface, or cable modem) that connects to the in-premises cabling to consumer devices such as a television set, telephone PDAs etc. Connected to the broadband interface is an adjunct or built-in wireless transceiver. The transceiver transmits broadband data, digitized voice and digital multimedia signals or any other broadband service through the in-premises cable system to an antenna located within the premises. The antenna then wirelessly radiates to the client devices. This system provides broadband data, voice and multimedia signals or any other broadband service to the applications by a wireless signal as distinguished from the signals supplied by the cable and internal wiring that are directly connected to the consumer devices.
The adjunct or built-in device formats the broadband data, multimedia and voice signals into a packet data format then converts it to a RF signal suitable for transmission. The output of the device then is coupled to the in-premises cabling, via a diplexer (i.e., typically at the BTI, cable modem or gateway). At a second or nth convenient location in the in-premises cable, a second diplexer is connected to the cable. The diplexer couples only the RF signal containing the broadband data, multimedia and voice signals (not the standard broadcast services) to a signal radiation device (i.e., an RF antenna or via the signal radiation leaking from a coaxial cable itself) which radiates the signal to the immediate surrounding location. Various application wireless devices, near the radiating cable location, receives the RF signal containing the specific services from the radiating antenna or leaking source. Applications at the second or nth location may radiate application generated signals back through the antenna and diplexer (or filter) for transmission through the in-premises cable to the adjunct device and back to the BTI, cable modem or gateway into the cable system.